


Snowed In

by pineappleoracle



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Lots of pranks, bc Spy isn't doing it and somebody has to, it's just a fic about Sniper being an awkward self-asigned dad to Scout, merc family feels, scout goes from 0 dads to 7 and a pyro, sniper doesn't know why but scout is his new son now, you've heard of dad spy now get ready for dad sniper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 00:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12900306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pineappleoracle/pseuds/pineappleoracle
Summary: How do you stop nine mercenaries from killing each other repeatedly when snowed in for a week? And more importantly, how do you stop them from bullying their youngest member?





	Snowed In

Somehow the snowstorm hadn't stopped for a week.    
While strong snowstorms weren't unusual up in these mountains, this had been an unexpectedly wild and sudden one. Now, that wasn't much of a problem, the mercs sure wouldn't mind a week or two of ceasefire - but the snowstorm started a day before a supply train was supposed to arrive.   
And it's hard to enjoy your free time when your food could run out before the storm finally lets up.

  
  
On day three it had become clear. They couldn't even see to the chain link fence around the base through the snow, and it was piling up so high sniper's camper was halfway buried already. Sniper himself had reluctantly asked Heavy for help with going outside to get anything important from his camper, as the australian was forced to use his assigned room inside the base for the first time.

When they returned, Soldier called in a team meeting, and told (ordered) them to ration the remaining food. By the end of day three, tension was running high between them.

  
Well, not ALL of them. Sniper was used to spending his time in one small place, so being stuck in the base wasn't a problem for him. However, being stuck in the base with eight other, very loud and very angry and more or less crazy mercenaries made him miss the solitude of his camper within an hour.

  
He had to admit, he did not expect Soldier to react so rational (pun intended) to the situation. But while he appreciated the man's calmness before the storm (hah), some of the others.. had not. That was the second surprise: if anything, he thought Scout would be the one the most annoyed with being stuck inside with food rations, but he and Heavy had reacted the calmest. Well at first all of them had been calm and collected. Had been. Sniper had stayed in the common room while Soldier, Demo and Spy went to ration the food (surprisingly, Demo was the best in the kitchen, and Spy a close second). Engie and Pyro went to check on the firewood, heating system and generator, Medic left to the infirmary to check his stocks (and doves) and Heavy went to "get warm clothes".  
  
That left Sniper to stand around awkwardly on the couch with nothing to do and only Scout in the room with him. Just as the silence was about to become unbearable-  
  
" Ya really don't like being inside the base, do ya?"  
  
Sniper barely managed not to flinch at the sudden question.  
  
"Uh.."  
  
"It's not the base itself tho, right? Is it the whole 'bein' 'round people' thing."  
  
How did he-?  
  
"How do you-"  
  
"Ya looked like a deer in the headlights the whole team meeting, but soon as all the others left ya finally leaned back in the couch. Ain’t hard to notice.”  
Did Scout just _wink_ at him??  
  
"I-"   
  
Before Sniper could even come up with a good response, everybody else suddenly appeared in the room again, shouting over each other. Soldier was shouting at Demo and Spy about the food rations, Demo and Spy (mostly Demo) shouted back and threatened to stab Soldier (mostly Spy), Medic interrupted them shouting that he refuses to waste his supplies on their petty banter, and Sniper tried to become one with the couch and somehow disappear out the door at the same time.   
  
Finally, Heavy came back with Engie and Pyro, pulled Soldier and Spy away from each other and shut everybody up with a booming "BE QUIET"  
  
Across the room Sniper saw Scout look as much like he wanted to disappear as he was feeling himself. Luckily, with Heavy still holding Soldier and Spy, the room had quieted down. With a sigh, Engie looked over them.   
  
"Well, good news is that the heating'll keep working for about a week, and even after that we got a whole load a' firewood to last for a month. How's it with the rations n medicine?" He added with a look that told everybody to better stay calm this time.   
  
Sniper sure wished it worked.  
  
"Well if we rationed the food PROPERLY it would last us two weeks but those BRAIN DEAD MAGGOTS are saying canned beans and bacon, THE MOST AMERICAN FOOD THERE IS, 'ain't eatable'"   
Sniper held back a sigh at Soldier's shouting.   
  
"I ain't sayin' it ain't eatable, just that yer crazy fer sayin' we shoul' eat it for a whole week!!"   
Holding back another deep sigh at the Demoman's rambling was already impossible.   
  
"We do not have enough supplies to zreat everybody for nausea from eating zat for a week!"   
Slowly, Sniper put his hands over his face.   
  
“WHY would anybody get sick from eating GOOD AMERICAN FOOD? IT’S WHAT MAKES OUR ARMY STRONG AND POWERFUL!! AND IT WILL MAKE US STRONG AND POWERFUL AND NOT. SICK!!!!!”   
  
With a groan Sniper peeked through his fingers at Scout for help. The bostonian noticed him looking at him and with a smirk pointed first at the arguing and shouting mercs and then twirled his finger in a circle by his head as the symbol for “they’ve gone completely crazy now”. Sniper couldn’t help but smile at that, even as a headache started forming behind his eyes from all the yelling. Scout switched to a look of pure innocence when the room quieted down once again. Sniper looked up to see all of the others (except Pyro who was now hiding behind Engie) glaring at each other. The only sound in the room was the quiet tapping of Scouts foot, as loud as thunder in the tense silence.

Finally, Medic snapped.  
  
“CAN’T YOU JUST SHUT UP FOR ONCE?” he yelled at Scout, his eyes blazing with fury.

Sniper was taken aback from the man's sudden anger at something so small.

“Now now, let's not lose our heads over this, we got a serious situation to deal with and-”

Engie’s attempt at calming everybody down fell on deaf ears.

“It is impossible to get anyzing done when everybody keeps acting like a bunch of Kinder! _Especially Scout!_ ”

Sniper hadn't even heard the quiet rattling of the couch as the bostonian bounced on it, but Medic seemed absolutely enraged.  
“Geez i didn’t even do anythi-”

“WE’RE TRYING TO HAVE A SERIOUS CONVERSATION HERE AND DON’T NEED YOU FOOLING AROUND-”

“Medic please just ignore him-” Once again Engie was ignored.

“I DIDN’T EVEN FUCKING DO ANYTHING!” Scout had stood up and thrown his hands in the air in exasperation. Silence filled the room once again as he and the doctor glared at each other, until “FINE if you think I’m so useless i’ll just go so i don’t BOTHER you and waste your precious time!”

“Scout-” Engie halfheartedly tried to stop him but the boy dodged his outstretched arm and slammed the door behind himself as he left the room.

“What a Nervensäge…” Medic muttered, still glaring at the door, some of the others muttering in agreement.

“The kid really didn’t do anything to ya.” Sniper didn’t even realize what he was doing until the words had left his mouth and he was towering over Medic, glaring down the man through his ever-present shades.

He looked at the other mercs in the room, at Soldier frozen where he had tried to slip past Heavy and punch the Medic, at the Spy hanging like a ragdoll from where Heavy had picked him up one handed by the back of his suit, at Demo who had frozen with a bottle he got from heaven-knows-where halfway to his mouth, and finally at Engie still standing by the door, now slowly dropping his outstretched arm, Pyro still hidden behind him.

Sniper sighed, for the third time within ten minutes.

 

* * *

 

 

To be honest, he had never before bothered to explore the inside of the base much. But now, after he had left the others behind to argue in the.. common room? Living room? Hell he didn’t even know what that room was called. But he sure had enough of sitting on the couch while everybody was screaming all around him, and he _definitely_ had enough of how they had snapped at Scout. The kid might’ve put on a brave angry face while storming out of the room, but Sniper had dealt with enough bullies as a kid to notice his shaking clenched fists and the way he had hunched his shoulders.  
  
Now if only the kid hadn’t apparently instantly turned into thin air after leaving the room, he might have a chance of finding him… and then what?  
Well no need to worry about what to say yet, since he had just managed to get completely lost inside the long hallways of the base while he was thinking. Piss.

 

Why was this place so much bigger on the inside? On the outside it looked like a wooden one-story building, built half under an overhanging cliff face. (When Heavy first saw it, he pulled a face and muttered something along the lines of “If snow comes down mountain, will trap house in cave”. Sure is looking like they’ll soon find out exactly what he meant.)

Maybe the tunnels and lifts (all long blocked by the snow) that brought them to the four maps in the area should have tipped Sniper in on one little fact about the building: It was actually built deep into the mountain.  
Weren’t icebergs also like that?  
You see only the tiniest tip of it above the water, and the rest is hidden deep down?   
At least that was what he heard once.  
Never felt the need to go that far south.  
Or north.  
Guess he ended up having not much of a choice about the second one.

 

Well so far he’d seen three staircases. The one in the kitchen that led to an underground storage room, the one to the generator and heating system and Engie’s workplace (Sniper went there about twice in total) and - wait did the three steps by the front door count?

Ok let's say three and a half staircases. Store room, Engie’s basement, the front door and the one he had just found.

 

He had to admit, he only been walking for about five minutes, but after the walls went from wooden to stone the long winding hallways had completely turned him around.  
Where the hell had Scout disappeared to?  
All the doors along the way had looked like nobody had touched them in years, but Sniper had counted three smaller hallways going off the main one so far. Once he had turned around only to find two identical hallways behind him, and all within ten minutes tops.   
Like he said.  
Piss.

 

Should he go down the mysterious third staircase? Why would Scout even be down there? He probably went to his room and Sniper would be lost here forever and slowly freeze to death only to respawn and have the others ask him where the fuck he went and there was a light shining at the bottom of the stairs.

The lights in the base were activated by a motion sensor to conserve power. They turned off automatically after about five minutes.  
_Scout had to be somewhere down there!_  

(Sniper really had to talk to Engie about some of the sensors, all the hallways he had walked past along the way had lighted up before he even got close.)

 

But the light could turn off any second and with it Sniper's only lead. He was already running down the stairs before he could finish thinking about it.   
Maybe he should have watched his step instead of thinking so much.   
Because the stairs suddenly started disappearing under his feet as the end of the staircase was coming towards him, and with it another hallway that he couldn't even see as he tumbled down and tried to catch himself on a door. Which promptly gave in under him, sending him falling into the room behind it.

 

And with that the best sniper in the world, the extremely dangerous assassin with the deadliest aim, fell through the old wooden door and landed flat on his face in front of a very surprised Scout.

 

“...Hi. Ow.”

His face had sunk into a soft carpet, saving him from a broken nose. But it wasn’t soft enough to disappear into, never to be seen again. Woulda been nice.

 

“Uh, hi. What’s... What’s up.”

 

Sniper rolled on his back and looked up at Scout.

“You.” He rubbed his hand over his hurting face. His other hand felt the carpet. It was really soft. How the hell is there such a soft carpet in their shitty old base?!

 

He slowly sat up and turned around.  
He was in a small room, the door he had fell in through behind him and Scout in front of another door. There were a few books on a shelf on the wall and a few more on the floor, together with comic books, magazines and… drawings? And all with that way too nice carpet.

 

“Why's there this nice carpet in this dusty old base?”  
He didn’t even realize he said his thoughts out loud until Scout started shuffling around.

 

“...My ma sent it first time i told her how our bases look. Said she bought it from my money, so I gotta take it.”

The boy sounded ashamed.

 

“Hell you’ve had a carpet this nice the whole time? I’m jealous mate. And. Really dizzy.”

Sniper had tried to stand up and immediately regretted it. Seems like the carpet wasn’t soft enough to completely catch his fall.

 

“Geez old man, you hit your head during your spectacular entrance?”

 

* * *

 

 

Slowly the room stopped spinning.

 

“Gotta say, nice place you got here, kiddo.”

 

Sniper took a careful sip of the cold tea Scout gave him. A bit too sweet for his taste, but not bad.   
It was a nice room, small but cozy, and he could tell Scout spent a lot of time down here.

 

“Ah um, thank ya. But uh… _please_ don’t tell any of the others about this?”

 

Surprised, Sniper turned to look at Scout. The boy had put down his own tea cup and was nervously fiddling with his dog tags.

 

“...Do the others shove ya around like that earlier all the time?”

 

Scout froze and looked at him surprised.

 

“I’m not inside the base that much usually, but just the past couple of days I’ve constantly seen ‘em walk all over you.”

It had come as a shock to Sniper, to see everybody either ignore the boy or tell him to fuck off. And now, seeing the boy so nervous, even scared of losing what seemed to be his one place to himself - it made Sniper feel a kind of determination he hadn’t felt in a long time.

 

“W-Well it’s not like it bothers me! They just can’t see how great and amazing I am, y’know?”

 

“Then how about we show them?”

A plan was starting to form in Sniper’s head. A slightly crazy, slightly stupid plan. It was time he got more involved with the happenings inside the base.


End file.
